U4 (club)

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Entrance of the U4 (2017)

The U4 is one of the most famous clubs in Vienna and was a popular meeting place for the local music scene in the 1980s.

history

The name refers to its original purpose as a subway station. The construction of the U4 station Meidling Hauptstraße had to be stopped for static reasons and started again a few meters away.

Old U4 promotional sticker

Since opening on May 8, 1980, the U4 has been a contact point for the underground scene , i.e. an audience away from the mainstream discotheque . Musically they sat initially mainly due to the of London late New Wave , later began on certain weekdays clubs with different focal points to establish. Austria's first clubbing started on Mondays in 1984 with the Flamingo . 1989 Thursday launched the Gay -Club Heaven Gay Night in U4, which remains one of the most prestigious House Events Vienna and each year as an alternative to the Vienna Opera Ball on the same evening the Rose Ball celebrated.

At the beginning, conservative politicians saw the pub as a danger for the youth and the dance license was revoked for four months. The tradition of live performances arose from this brief ban on dancing. Many musicians appeared at the beginning of their careers in the U4 or made guest appearances in the Meidlinger Keller, even though they were at the peak of their world careers. Aside from regular concerts, there were also club and secret concerts by international bands that were deliberately held on a small scale, for example in 1987 Prince played one of his legendary, unannounced after-show concerts in the Wiener Stadthalle in U4. Many international artists also paid a visit to the U4 as guests, including Marilyn Manson , Jean-Paul Gaultier , Kurt Cobain , Grace Jones , Divine , Rammstein , Die Ärzte and Die Toten Hosen . The Austrian singer Falco was a regular guest at U4 in the 1980s, and a Falco memorial night is held in his honor every February. In 1989, the U4 was almost completely burned out and during the renovation and conversion, the stage area used for concerts was reduced in size in favor of the dance floor.

At the beginning of 2005 there was a change in the operating company, soon after that Conny de Beauclair , who had been working as a doorman since it opened in 1980 and thus became a scene icon, left the U4. On September 27, 2005, the club was closed unexpectedly in order to forestall an official ban due to violated fire protection regulations. The individual events were moved by the respective organizers to other venues in Vienna such as the Fledermaus Cabaret or the Volksgarten Clubdiskothek .

After another change of operator in February 2006 and after completing the extensive renovation work, the U4 was reopened on March 10, 2006. Conny de Beauclair was persuaded by the new operators to work again and has the functions of "Headsecurity & Host" and house photographer. As the only event from the time before the closure, the Studentenclubbing Tuesday Club returned to the U4. From October 2006, attempts were also made to make Heaven Gay Night a monthly special of the Saturday event BEHAVE! under the name BEHAVE! in HEAVEN , but this cooperation was ended in February 2007 after only five events.

Trivia

The U4 was immortalized musically in the songs Fürstenfeld by STS and Ganz Wien by Falco .

literature

  • Conny de Beauclair: Conny de Beauclair presents 20 years of U4 . Libro. Vienna 2000. ISBN 3-85494-203-6
    • plus the double CD 20 years U4 , Capitol (EMI Austria) and Intonation Recordings - 7243 849209 0
  • Conny de Beauclair: Conny de Beauclair presents: U4 discotheque - 30 years (also: 30 years U4 ). Echomedia Publishing House. Vienna 2010. ISBN 978-3-902672-29-2 (extended new edition)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexander Wulff-Gegenbaur: The connection between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction in the Viennese scene gastronomy using the example of U4 Diskothekenbetriebs GmbH , bachelor thesis at FHWien , Tourismus Management, GRIN Verlag, 2008, ISBN 3-640-22774-3 , p. 29 ( restricted preview in Google Book Search)
  2. ↑ Martin W. Drexler: Idealzone Wien: the quick years (1978-1985) , Falter, 1998, ISBN 3-85439-224-9 , p. 186
  3. ^ Profil, vol. 36, 2006, p. 122
  4. ↑ Eye-Q: U4 (apparently) closed , September 28, 2005
  5. ^ ORF Vienna: Possibly only a break for U4 , September 29, 2005
  6. ^ A b rainbow.or.at: Kultdiscothek U4 opens again! , February 18, 2006

Coordinates: 48 ° 11 ′ 0 ″  N , 16 ° 19 ′ 41 ″  E